The Wolves Ch. 005

"Cool. Thanks, man," he said, accepting the gem. He closed his hand and channeled his mana into it, learning the skill.

I put the mana gem into my storage and then turned to the group. "Ok, let's continue. Mind leading us out, Sonja?"

She nodded once again and started walking to the next corridor. There were a few traps along the way. None of them were new, and Sonja easily triggered them with an arrow. Before long, we were standing in front of a set of large wooden doors. There was an ornate carving, with the name 'Jihm' inscribed in the middle.

"Are we all ready?" I asked.

I got some confirmations and some nods, so I opened the door and we walked through. The inside of the room was pitch black. I was about to take out one of my light globes and charge it up when the door closed behind us and torches all around the room lit up. We were in a large room that was filled with sand. We didn't see the boss anywhere, but then the sand in the middle of the room started moving. Out of it, moved a large sand colored worm with a gaping maw of what looked like razor sharp teeth. It let out a loud roar that had us all cupping our ears to try to block out the noise. When it was done, it dove back underground.

I had an inkling of what it was doing. "Everyone spread out!" I called. "Anja, it's going to try to swallow one of us. Do the same thing you did against the snake. Give me a one second pulse every two seconds and call out who it's after."

She nodded and we all spread out, waiting for the worm to make its move. We didn't have to wait long.

"Johnny!" Anja called out.

I immediately started moving but immediately knew I was going to be too slow. My first push off with my left foot slipped in the sand. I tried to position my shield to take the brunt of the hit. The worm barreled out of the ground and impacted my shield, hard, with the side of its head. I felt a familiar pain in my left arm and was flung over 20 feet away, landing in the sand. My arm felt broken, and the worm wasn't going to give me any time to rest. It pulled its head back and then shot forward, trying to swallow me again. I was already up and moving, and the strike barely missed me. I used Barbed Spear to lower its health regeneration, as well as increase Mason's damage and then started running closer to Ben, leaving my spear sticking out of the worm.

"Ben, Health Regen, and throw me a healing potion!"

Luckily it wasn't my dominant arm that was broken. I had to slow down a bit to catch the potion but managed it and continued running. I looked back at the worm and saw that I was no longer its focus. "Move, Ben!"

Credit to Ben, he didn't look at the worm, he just ran, narrowly dodging the strike. I chugged the potion and felt my bone knitting itself back together. It hurt like hell, and it would still be a few minutes before I had full use of it, but at least now it wasn't useless.

Besides the worm's head moving around, the rest of its body was stationary where it was sticking out of the ground, seeing as most of its body was still underground. This gave Anja, Mason and Sonja a lot of time to do damage. Unfortunately, I saw what they couldn't since they were behind the boss, unable to see its head.

"Back off, it's about to spin!" I shouted.

The worm tensed its body and then swung it around the room, sort of like a helicopter. Anyone who got hit would be sent flying with the force of the hit. Both of them quickly moved to the edge of the room where they would have more time. Mason used Dash to get away, while Anja had to run. Anja wasn't going to make it, but I saw there was room between the sand and the height the worm was spinning at.

"Down, Anja!"

She went into a slide, similar to that you would see at a baseball game, and lay down flat on the ground. A moment later, the worm's body spun over her. The rest of us were at the edge of the room, which was out of range of the strike. It stopped spinning, and then burrowed back in to the ground. my spear was ripped out of its body, leaving it laying on the surface of the sand. I ran over and picked it up.

"Watch your footing if Anja calls your name! I got hit because my foot slipped, slowing me down. Get ready!" I yelled.

We just needed to wait now. The longer the worm took to resurface, the longer I had for my arm to fully heal.

"Mason!" Anja called.

Mason was probably the worst person the worm could have targeted. He has two different ways of getting away, Whirling Leap, and Dash. The cooldown was already over for Dash, so he used that, immediately moving eight feet from where he was standing. As soon as the worm surfaced, Sonja was firing off arrows as fast as she could, and Anja, along with myself were moving in. It also appeared that Mason wasn't going to give it any time, either. He used Whirling Leap to close the distance and the worm bellowed when it was struck. I used Barbed Spear to pull me the rest of the way to the boss and reapply the healing regeneration debuff, as well as the bleed. Just in case it had removed them while burrowed. The worm bellowed out in pain again, so I'm guessing that Mason used Gash right after I used Barbed Spear.

The worm targeted Sonja next, launching itself at her and trying to swallow her whole. She was at such a long range that it was easy for her to dodge, however. She moved away a short distance, putting her bow inside her storage and withdrawing her katana. She turned back to the worm and started projecting her attacks with Windblade until she was out of mana, while she continued to back up. When she was out of mana, she put away her katana and withdrew her bow from her inventory, continuing on from where she left off.

The part of the worm's body that was sticking just a few feet out of the ground was getting pretty shredded at this point. With my spear, Mason's halberd, and Anja's katana, there were a lot of gouges and holes in its carapace-like skin. Mason had just ran away a short distance so he could use Whirling Leap since it did so much damage. Anja didn't have any melee attacks just yet, so she just continued slicing and dicing.

"Get back!" we heard Sonja shout. I looked up at the worm's body and saw that it was getting ready to spin again. I waited for it to start spinning, and then ran to the wall where its head started, which would give me the most time to get away. Anja followed me and we all managed to get out of the way this time.

It submerged yet again after it stopped spinning, and we spread back out, waiting for it to resurface.

"Ben!" I heard, and he started to move. He got away just in time, and the rest of us started attacking it again. I repeated the same thing from the second time it resurfaced, and used Barbed Spear to pull myself to it. This time, I was able to use Shield Bash. It didn't end up stunning the worm, but it did a nice bit of damage I heard two loud bellows, one after another, that probably signalled Mason hitting it with another Whirling Leap followed by Gash.

The sand around where the worm had emerged was no longer the yellowish-brown color it had been when we entered the room. Now, it was a dark red. The worm was losing blood at a ridiculous rate, and was still fighting. It was noticeably slower when it struck again, this time at Ben. He was easily able to move to the side and cast a Scorch, hitting it in the side of the head. It looked like it was getting ready to spin again, but instead, it bellowed out in pain and collapsed, sending sand spraying in different directions.

I breathed a sigh of relief, and glad that my injury wasn't more serious. I was also happy to see that the potions Ben bought were effective. I sat down on the sand that wasn't covered in blood and took my water bottle out of my inventory, taking a long drink. It seems like everyone was doing the same, and we watched the body slowly disappear. In its place, there was a large wooden chest.

When she was done resting, Sonja stood up, nocked an arrow and fired it at the chest. Nothing happened, but better safe than sorry, I guess.